


Maybe This Time Tony Will Get It?

by Rjslpets



Series: Therapeutic Conversations [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), The Avengers should try it, Therapy is Awesome, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, adult conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 12:25:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8248904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rjslpets/pseuds/Rjslpets
Summary: Once again, Dr. Sorens will try and point out to Tony Stark the negative consequences of thinking that you are responsible for everything.  Maybe this time, it will stick?





	

**Author's Note:**

> OK - I have decided on the following time line for this story:  
> 1\. The fighting in Sokovia that killed the Maximoffs occurred in 1994 when Balkans were generally going south  
> 2\. The twins were, therefore, around 7 or 8 which I think is a reasonable age to decide that the name on the missile that didn't kill your parents is responsible for the death of your parents  
> 3\. Tony was 17 when his parents died
> 
> Finally, I have read a lot of commentary about how Wanda is responsible for Ultron because of the vision she gave Tony. I actually think she is responsible because Ultron wouldn't have gotten as far as he did if the twins hadn't willing ly helped him. I am assuming in this arc that Tony never told anyone about the vision and he doesn't know that Wanda gave it to him.
> 
> I also think it is reasonable to assume that Strucker was involved in the whole Sokovian violence since he would have far less trouble doing human experimentation in a destabilized country as opposed to one where a stable government might have noticed what he was doing.

“Let’s discuss the situation with Wanda Maximoff.” This was unexpected. They had finished the last session talking about responsibility and guilt and Tony wasn’t sure how this was related. They had discussed before how he hadn’t told Wanda about the situation and he realized that was wrong and he should’ve made time to speak with her and that was his fault.

“What is there to discuss? I agree that the way I approached it was wrong and I should’ve made time to talk to her.”

Dr. Sorens gave him a considering look which always meant that he had overlooked a crucial part of the discussion, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was. “Why do you think that you didn’t talk to her?”

“I didn’t have time!” Then the silence started. She was extremely good at waiting him out, Tony noted resentfully. But as the silence continued, Tony (as happened all the time in this process – again, resentment) thought more carefully about his answer. “I could have called her” he began, more hesitant this time, “but I think I was worried that she wouldn’t listen to me. She…well, she doesn’t like me and I think that she might have done the opposite just to spite me. Everyone was calling for her head and I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what, Tony?”

“I didn’t trust her to behave in a way that protected her interests. I thought she would go off half-cocked, which I guess she did.”

“So you made the decision for her?”

“I did what I thought was best!” Tony felt frustration and anger rise up as he thought about the whole situation. He had never expected to have his back put against the wall so quickly with the Accords, but thanks to the Avengers deciding to confront terrorists in the middle of a crowded city, without a word to the government of said city…

“You acted on her behalf without consulting with her, with the best intentions but do you think that was a good reason? It’s a rationale that a lot of people in your life seem to be using lately to explain or excuse their actions.” Tony was struck by the random thought that he never would have envisioned the mild therapist being able to deliver such a burn. He was tempted to say that what he had done was different, but was it really? Because she was right; he had acted as he thought best, Rogers had acted as he thought best, Natasha had, maybe even Clint and look at what a mess everything was. What if he hadn’t acted on behalf of others without consulting them?

“If I had forced Steve to listen to me about the Accords earlier, it might have been a different outcome.” He had forgotten about Wanda, but Dr. Sorens did not allow random thinking in their sessions; she had told him that going off on tangents was one of his defense mechanisms and that she would not allow it.

“That may or may not be true, but we are discussing Wanda Maximoff.”

“Right. So, I guess, if I had talked to her and explained the circumstances, she might not have gone off? No, I still think she would’ve.”

“That may be true, but what she does is her choice. People often think of ‘do no harm’ and the golden rule when thinking about morality, but another fundamental principle is the recognition that everyone has the right to self-determination. The right to make decisions about their own life and actions. For example, doctors must obtain consent of the patient to medical procedures. Everyone has to obtain positive consent before sexual relations with another person, etc. When you act on someone else’s behalf, you are always violating that principle to a certain extent. It may be justified as when a patient is unconscious and cannot give consent to a life-saving treatment, but it always has to be considered.”

“Ok. I guess I was taking responsibility for her?”

“Why would you need to do that?”

“Well, Wanda is young and she’s had a really bad life.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-five.”

“What were you doing at 25?”

“Well, I was running Stark Industries and partying my way across the globe. Oh.” Oh, she wasn’t a child and he had been treating her as one. Tony turned that thought over in his mind a little. It was true that Wanda was younger than him and most of the other Avengers, although she wasn’t that much younger than Steve (biologically). And, of course, Vision was barely out of toddlerhood chronologically. Dr. Sorens then asked the question just forming in his mind.

“Why were you treating her as if she was a child, if she was actually an adult?”

“I didn’t treat her like a child!” But he had and so, come to think of it, did Steve, and Clint, and probably the others. “I did, didn’t I? And so did the others. Steve and I argued over her like she was 12 and I had locked her in her room for not eating her vegetables.”

“Tell me, you and the others met Wanda Maximoff during the Ultron situation, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“What was she doing at that time?”

“She was working for Strucker – he was Hydra’s top guy in Sokovia.”

“And did she continue to work with him?”

“No, she and her brother started working with Ultron after Ultron killed Strukcer. Then they switched over to helping us.”

“So, she was working for an evil man and then choose to assist an evil AI? Did she ever apologize or express remorse for her choices?”

Tony tried to think if he had ever heard her do that. “Well, she never expressed any such thing to me, but then I was responsible for her parents’ deaths.”

“You killed her parents?”

“Not directly; a Stark bomb did during the violence in the 90s.”

“So, she blamed you for her parents’ death during a civil war in her country? But she didn’t blame Strucker who was a major player in the conflict?”

“He what? How do you know that?”

“I like to read history and a new history of the Balkan conflict just came out. It was based on the released SHIELD files on WikiLeaks. According to those files, he helped destabilize the Sokovian government because they were going to arrest him. But let us go back to our topic of conversation, as far as you know then, Wanda Maximoff has never expressed any remorse nor did the team ask her to? It seems odd that they would trust someone who had willingly worked for such obviously immoral parties.”

“Well, she was young.”

“But you feel guilt and responsibility for your actions at that age. As a matter of fact, you are 46 now and the Sokovian conflict was in 1994, so you would have been 26 at that time. If she isn’t responsible for her actions as she is too young at 25, then why are you responsible for actions at the same age?” Well, that was a facer.

“Tony, we have discussed several times the relationship between guilt and responsibility and how you accept them. The situation with Wanda Maximoff is an excellent illustration of this topic. You say that you were responsible for the death of her parents, correct?”

“Well, I built the weapon that killed them.”

“And the entire guilt for the killing of someone rests on the person who designed the weapon? Is there anyone else in the transaction who’s also responsible?”

“Of course, the person who fires the weapon is responsible for doing that! I’m not an idiot; I know that there were other people involved, but if I hadn’t built weapons…”

“OK, let us follow your line of reasoning. If you hadn’t built the missile, there would not have been a conflict in Sokovia?”

Tony was becoming annoyed, “Of course not! But it was my weapon.”

“So if you weren’t manufacturing weapons, there would not have been any bombs in Sokovia?”

Tony stared at her, frustrated beyond words. She looked steadily back at him and continued, “Tony, I am not negating your sense of moral responsibility for the production of weapons and your decision to cease doing so. I am trying to point out that when you seize moral responsibility for an entire situation, you make it easy for others to ignore their own behavior and take responsibility for it.”

The silence came back; Tony broke it finally. “Ok, really, I don’t understand. You keep telling me that and I just don’t see it. How is my admitting my part in Wanda’s parents’ deaths a problem?”

“Did you and she discuss her parents’ deaths?”

“Yeah, I apologized.”

“For what?”

“For killing her parents.”

“Did she apologize for her part in attacking you and the others at that time?”

“No.”

“So you apologized for a remote responsibility and she did not for her direct actions. Tony, were you directly responsible for her parents’ death? You didn’t fire the missile or start the conflict.”

“I know that! But..” he trailed off, unsure how to articulate his position

“How did taking the blame in that situation make you feel? Was it comfortable for you?” Tony sighed internally; they had been down this road as well. Yes, he was more comfortable taking blame. He nodded in response to the question. “Can you think of why it is comfortable, or maybe it would be easier to think of why not being responsible would be uncomfortable?”

Tony tried to think through his reasoning; he had committed to therapy and he was trying very hard to follow through on that commitment and that meant, he knew, awkward conversations. “I think,” he started, “that maybe I wanted some control?” They had discussed the concept of control and needing to have some semblance of that when dealing with his parents’ death. He had blamed himself for the fight with his father because that interpretation meant that he had some control over their deaths. Not that it had meant anything in the end.

“Control over what?” she pressed. Well, he had no idea. He certainly was responsible for Ultron; at least he was partially responsible for Ultron. Dr. Sorens and he had already been over that and he could now admit that Bruce was equally responsible for that mess. Also, that it had been a chain of circumstances he couldn’t have anticipated that spiraled into the disaster. Actually, he frowned, wasn’t Wanda also responsible for Ultron? If she and her brother hadn’t aided the AI, it would never have gotten as far as it did. And she hadn’t made a mistake; she had decided to help Ultron knowing that the AI was bent on something destructive. Although she hadn’t known the scope.

He tried to articulate this, “I guess, I was taking control for Ultron for the same reason that I didn’t blame Bruce. If I was in control, then it wasn’t an accident that I couldn’t have foreseen. But what Wanda did – that wasn’t an accident. She helped him, even knowing that he was going to do something destructive. She only stopped when she realized that destruction included what she loved. So, why do I feel so guilty and she doesn’t?”

“Maybe because you did. Humans like to stay away from uncomfortable emotions. If they can find a way not to feel them, they will.  As long as you acted guilty, she probably didn’t have to really think about her own actions or maybe she was feeling guilty but didn’t want to tell you. Again, I don’t know Wanda Maximoff, so I am just speculating. But I want you to think about this since it shows how you taking on all the responsibility for a situation can possibly injure someone else. If you take on all the guilt, you don’t allow space for anyone else to figure out their responsibilities in a situation. Just as we discussed about you and Pepper.”

That had been a bitch of a conversation. But after much yelling and stony silences, Dr. Sorens had gotten Tony to admit that maybe he wasn’t solely responsible for the breakup. She had pointed out to him that Pepper had become involved with him knowing that he was Iron Man and knowing the importance of that to him. Asking him to give it up was asking him to change himself in a fundamental way and, according to Dr. Sorens, that was not something that one adult can ask of another in a relationship. To Tony’s eternal surprise, Pepper had agreed with the therapist! Pepper also pointed out that she was not perfect and that Tony needed to accept that she made mistakes and letting him think that it was his fault that she couldn’t take the stress of Iron Man was her fault. The session that they had both had with Dr. Sorens had let them start repairing their friendship.

“Alright, let’s recap.” The hour was coming to an end and Tony felt he might have made a breakthrough, “When I take responsibility for an entire situation, other people may take that as permission or, I guess, proof that they aren’t responsible. Is this why they all blamed me for the Raft? No, sorry, distraction, I know. Ok, back on track. It also makes it easy for me to make decisions for other people which blows up in my face. So, I need to always remember that other people are responsible for what they do and I need to shove their guilt back in their faces when they try and off load it on me.”

Dr. Sorens smiled and nodded. They could work on the more subtle aspects of this in future sessions. For now, she was proud that Tony had been able to articulate this basic issue.


End file.
